You and Me: Together duet book number two

by Eve, Melody

  18

  Aria

  I open my eyes and nausea hits me like a truck. When I try to get up to vomit, I find my hands and feet have been secured with thick zip ties, and I’m lying on my bed. No one is in the room with me, and I’m sure I’m about to be sick. Rolling onto my side, I hang my head over the edge of the mattress and vomit onto the new rug. I wretch so hard, I pee myself a little. Dizzy, I roll back and gasp for breath, a layer of sweat breaking out all over my body causing my t-shirt to stick to my skin uncomfortably.

  What the hell is happening? I try to clear my mind and think about what happened before I blacked out. I was on the phone with Brandon when I thought I heard someone in the kitchen. I started to turn around, and that’s where it all goes fuzzy. I stare up at the ceiling trying to catch my breath and focus on a small spot the painters must have missed when they did the remodel.

  I narrow my eyes and try to focus on the spot harder. My vision is still affected by the drug someone used to knock me out. I listen straining to hear if someone is still here.

  Why would they tie me up and leave me alone? Unless they think no one will come looking for me, and I’ll starve here in my own bed. They obviously don’t know Roman. I wanted to get away from him and his overprotective ways, but now I see how right he was to be concerned.

  I look around the room. Nothing is out of place, the door is closed, and the lights are on. Who kidnaps someone in their own home? And why would you then leave?

  I struggle to sit up, and that’s when I realize that I’m not tied to the bed. I can get up and hop around if I want to. This seems like another stupid part of a stupid plan. I swing my legs over the side of the bed, careful not to place my feet in the puke and stand. The room turns for a moment while my head tries to keep up with the position change, and I wobble on my feet.

  Then I hear footsteps coming toward the bedroom. I hurry to sit on the edge of the bed making it there just in time for the door to swing open. Standing there is a man who looks vaguely familiar.

  “You’re awake.”

  “You’re observant. What the hell is going on? Who are you?”

  “Somebody who knows you’re a spoiled ‘lil brat who don’t get to destroy lives and get away with it.”

  Spoiled brat? Who is this guy? I think hard reaching into the far corners of my mind trying to match his face with a name.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Figures. You ruined my sister’s life, and you don’t even remember.”

  Sister? Oh my God, now I know who he is. Lynn Black’s big brother, Kevin Black. I thought he went to jail for dragging his girlfriend through a mall parking lot by her hair out the door of his Corvette. I’ve only seen a couple of pictures of him, and none of them recent.

  “Kevin? What are you talking about? I didn’t ruin Lynn’s life. She slept with my fiancé. And not just once, they were having an affair for years.”

  “Because she loved him and gave him what he needed. You were holding out on him, sitting at home spending his money. You made him go looking for attention in another woman’s arms.”

  His grammar leaves a lot to be desired. He doesn’t sound like a smart man. I hope I can make him understand the truth before he does something stupid. I scrunch up my face and close my eyes shaking my head back and forth.

  “What kind of lies has she been feeding you? I was never cold, and if I was distant, it was because David wasn’t around. I hardly think that’s my fault. And as for spending money, we had separate accounts. I never spent a dime of his money. He is a lying cheat, and your sister is a whoring backstabber.”

  He steps to me closing the distance between us in a flash, and his hand is on my face slapping me. “You don’t get to talk about my sister that way. She is a good, wholesome woman. She loved that man more than you ever did, and now he won’t even talk to her because he’s so fucking hung-up on you. I don’t get why, you’re nothing special, that’s for sure. You’re just a nerdy bookworm gold digger.” He looks me up and down with disgust, and I hold my cheek with my hand stunned. I’ve never been slapped before and especially not by a man.

  “You know, the only part of that claim that offends me is the gold-digger part. I just told you, I never took a dime from David. I’m not about money, never was, never will be. I loved him, or at least I thought I did. Turns out I didn’t know what love is. Your sister did me a huge favor sleeping with David. Now I’ve met someone who knows how to treat a woman, and he loves me every minute of the day, not just when it’s convenient for him.”

  He laughs a long, evil laugh, and his eyes darken. I watch with apprehension as he steps back and pray he doesn’t decide my sass is worth another slap across my face.

  “Big words coming from somebody who ditched her man at the altar, went on her honeymoon, and came home with a billionaire. Sounds like a shallow gold digger to me. He probably doesn’t give a shit about you, just wants a good fuck, and he’ll cut you lose.”

  “Why are you here? Where’s Lynn? If she’s so angry, why are you doing this instead of her?”

  “I’m here takin’ care of family business. My sister is broken-hearted and alone. When you’re gone, that jackass will take her back, and she’s gonna be happy. I want my baby sister to be happy.”

  When I’m gone. I hope that doesn’t mean what it sounds like. “You don’t want her to be with David, he’s a cheater, he’s broke, and there are loan sharks from Vegas looking for him. If they find him, they will make sure he never plays ball again. If you really want to help her, introduce her to a nice guy, somebody who puts her first and loves her for who she is.”

  “She don’t want no nice guy, she wants David, and I don’t believe any of that shit. He plays for the Chicago Cubs. He’s rolling in it.”

  “No, he isn’t. My boyfriend, Roman, has been keeping tabs on him for years. He works for the bank, and he knows everything about his finances.”

  “I don’t believe you. You just want to keep them two apart so you can have him wishing he could still have you.”

  “I don’t want anything to do with David. Lynn is welcome to him. I’m happy with Roman, I love him, and I never want to be with anyone else.”

  Kevin steps forward leaning down until we are nose to nose to speak his next words, and I nearly gag on his horrible breath. “You’re never gonna be with anybody else ‘cuz I’m gonna kill you.”

  I stare at him letting the words sink in. I was right, he means me harm, the worst kind of harm. Death.

  “You… you don’t want to go back to jail, Kevin,” I stutter, and he grins showing me the ugliest set of teeth I’ve ever seen. They’re all yellow and crooked, nothing like Lynn’s set of perfect white teeth.

  “Jail ain’t so bad. They feed ya, you don’t gotta pay rent, and they got TV. That’s all I want outta life. That and to make sure my baby sister is happy.”

  Why do his pathetic life goals have to involve me dying? Couldn’t he just help Lynn find a new boyfriend and take up yoga or something? I can feel the color draining from my face and nausea returning to my stomach as his announcement settles.

  I’m about to throw up again when I hear a loud, insistent knock on my front door. I snap my head up and find Kevin looking down the hall.

  “I told you somebody would come looking for me.”

  His eyes swing to mine. “Don’t matter, they can’t get in.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. If it’s my boyfriend, he has the code to the security system, and he can access it from an app on his phone from outside.”

  Lying is a risk. I don’t know if he knows how the system works, but it’s worth trying. The security system can only be disarmed from inside, but Roman does have a key if it’s him.

  “Aria! Are you home?” a man’s voice calls out from the hall, but it’s not Roman. I’ve heard it before, but I can’t put a face to the voice.

  “That Richie Rich?” Kevin asks ignoring my lie.

  “I don’t
know,” I lie again.

  “Oh, come on sweetie, you don’t know the voice that screams out your name every night?”

  “I can’t hear very well. Maybe if you let me go into the other room, I could tell.”

  “Nah, don’t matter anyway. Whoever it is, is out there, and we’re in here, and in a minute, it’ll only be me in here.” He smiles and takes an enormous hunting knife from the back of his belt. It glints in the light as he holds it up to intimidate me, and it works. I begin to shake uncontrollably. I’m tied up and locked in here with this red-necked lunatic, and whoever is outside my door isn’t Roman and will soon walk away when I don’t answer.

  I’m screwed.

  “Aria! It’s Brandon, we have a meeting today. Open up!” He bangs on the door again.

  Oh my God, Brandon. Why is he here? Wait, what am I thinking? Who cares why he’s here, somebody is looking for me!

  We were talking earlier. He must have gotten worried and came to see what happened. Good old Brandon, always looking out for his friends.

  Kevin walks toward me and presses a knee into the mattress to grab me around the neck. He pulls my head back and places the cold metal of the knife to my throat. “Ready to make a mess on this pretty new bamboo flooring? It’ll be a hell of a lot easier to clean up than that old crusty carpet ‘ya used to have in here.”

  “How do you know what my carpet looked like?” I ask. I may as well try to prolong my life a little longer with questions, although it is strange that he would know about my carpet.

  “How you think I got in here? I was on the crew who remodeled your little crib. I made a secret passthrough in the closet behind the shelves into the abandoned place next door. Pretty genius, huh? I been messing with you ever since you got back from Mexico. Lynn’s the one who sent you the picture of your man and his wifey. I couldn’t believe how easy it was for her to slip in and get that picture acting like a flower delivery girl. Rich people aren’t very smart, are they? She dropped off that mutt that day, too. Pushed him outta the delivery van. Did you ever find him?”

  “Yes, this morning. But wait, how did she know where to look for that photograph?”

  “I paid off the regular delivery guy to tell me where stuff was in the house.”

  “Very smart,” I say hoping my compliment boosts his ego enough that he will go easy on me.

  “Thanks.” The look on his face says he’s proud of himself for being a tricky thief. I’d roll my eyes if I thought he wouldn’t see me.

  I glance at the closet door. “Hey, can you show me the secret entrance before… before, you know? It must be pretty amazing if I never noticed it.” I need to keep him busy talking so Brandon can find a way inside.

  “You ain’t been here but thirty minutes since you came back from Mexico. Course you didn’t see it.”

  “Still, what could it hurt? I’m just curious, and also I’m not ready to die.” I figure I may as well be honest.

  “Yeah, guess so, ain’t like it matters. Come on.” He pushes me forward with his knee that’s on the mattress while continuing to keep the knife pressed to my throat. One wrong move, and I would bleed out in minutes.

  Carefully, I stand doing my best not to wobble. I lean against him, my back to his front to prove that it’ll be hard for me to walk like this.

  “Aria! I know you’re home. Answer the door!” Brandon yells banging on the door now instead of knocking. A moment later, it sounds like he is kicking the door. He knows something is wrong. It’s not like Brandon to try to kick down a door. He must have contacted Roman.

  Kevin removes the knife leaving me balancing by the bed to close the door blocking out the racket Brandon is making. When he returns, he squats in front of me and slices through the zip tie around my ankles with the knife.

  He stands and gives me a little push toward my new walk-in closet. “Been wantin’ to cut those off since you woke up. I might have a go with you before I cut your pretty throat. I bet you got tight little pussy, don’t cha? Lynn said David never fucked ya much these past few years, and you don’t seem like the type to step out on her man.”

  My stomach flips, and the sweat on my skin feels cold and clammy. No way is this guy going to rape me. My legs are free now, and David may have been a rotten, cheating fiancé, but he taught me self-defense when we first started dating. He said he worried about me being home alone when he was on the road with the team.

  Kevin pushes me into the closet where the light is still on. He stands me in front of the tall custom cabinet that houses my shoes, and while holding the back of my neck with one hand, he slides the shelving to the side. Behind it is a huge hole large enough to walk through leading into what’s left of the apartment next door. To expand my apartment, they had to use half the space of the vacant one. I never considered what happened to the left-over square footage.

  “See, I been staying in there all this time. I could come and go whenever I wanted.”

  I bend forward at the waist feigning interest in his dilapidated quarters, but it’s too dark to see much of anything.

  “That’s really smart of you, Kevin. I wondered how someone got in here without anyone noticing, but I couldn’t figure it out.” Stroke his ego, make him feel smart, stay alive, stay alive, stay alive.

  “Ya’ll and your fancy security systems couldn’t keep me out.” I risk a side glance and see him smiling big and proud with his chest puffed out. This guy probably never did anything legal worth being praised for, so I give it another go.

  “That’s right, you’re smarter than the dumb techies who make those systems. I bet you could break into anyone’s house and rob them blind.”

  He snorts and says dreamily staring into the dark hole, “Yeah, probably could.”

  He’s falling for it. Maybe I can get out of this after all?

  The banging on the door increases almost as if there is more than one person out there now. Kevin looks at me and shrugs. “Sorry, I ain’t gonna have time to take you out in style. That guy breaks down the door, the cops will be showing up, and you gotta be dead by then.”

  The banging stops, and the silence paired with his words shakes me to the core. Any progress at boosting his ego is lost. He yanks my body in front of his and reaches across my neck with the knife, and it pierces my skin. I stomp on his foot with my heel and bite his arm as hard as I can until I taste blood in my mouth.

  He screams and jerks cutting my neck again, and that is when all hell breaks loose. The closet door opens behind us slamming against the wall causing Keven to look back at the same time Roman rushes him through the dark hole in the wall.

  I fall to the floor and quickly scoot back under the rack of clothes until my back hits the wall. Gasping for breath, I watch Roman straddle Kevin on the floor punching him repeatedly. In his initial tackle, he knocked the knife from his hand. I look toward the closet door and see Brandon standing over them both with a gun pointing at Kevin.

  Kevin’s face is a wreck. Roman is inflicting serious damage, and he’s going to kill him if he doesn’t stop.

  “Brandon, make him stop!” I yell.

  “Roman, we got him, stop before you kill him,” Brandon yells, but Roman is possessed. Kevin isn’t even conscious anymore, he’s just lying there, limp and bloody with his face looking more and more like hamburger with every blow.

  “Roman, stop, please. He didn’t hurt me, I’m okay. Stop. Don’t make me watch you kill him!” I cry. His punches slow, and I scoot out to touch him with my bound hands. He’s panting, sweat dripping from his face when he stops beating him and turns his gaze on me.

  I’ve never seen anyone look like Roman looks right now. He is bursting with rage and fury, that vein on the side of his temple that bulges when he is angry pulses to the rapid beat of his frantic heart. His eyes are dilated black and empty until he sees something on my neck that snaps him from his rabid state.

  “You’re bleeding, he cut you,” he says, and my hands go to my throat. It’s warm and sticky, and I do have
a cut, but it’s not deep. “Call 911,” he barks at Brandon who looks at the gun in his hands like he’s seeing it for the first time.

  “What do you want me to do with this?” he asks Roman. It’s Roman’s gun. He must have given it to him before he let him in.

  “Shoot the motherfucker,” Roman says scooping me into his arms carrying me to my kitchen and depositing me on the counter. “Do you have a first-aid kit?” he asks.

  “Yeah, in the hall closet. Hey, can you take these off please?” I say before he can leave me alone to search for it.

  Without a word, he reaches for a butcher block of knives and removes one with a medium- size blade to cut the plastic. They must be new. I’ve never had good knives before. I’m grateful for them now because I’m pretty sure Roman would have chewed the ties off my hands if he had to.

  “Will you be okay for a second?”

  “Yes.” I grab his face before he can rush off and look deep into his eyes before kissing him on the mouth. Nothing sexual. No, this kiss is a thank you for saving me, thank you for being my knight in shining armor, thank you for knowing where I was at when I snuck out like a brat and put myself at risk, and most of all, thank you for loving me so hard for so damn long.

  I hear sirens in the distance coming closer to the building, and I pull away. “You’re welcome,” he says as if I’d spoken my thoughts aloud.

  I watch him walk away and see blood on his shirt. I look down at my blood-stained hands and gasp reaching for the cut again, it’s still bleeding.

  Brandon passes Roman in my living room. “I zip-tied his hands and feet, not that he’s going anywhere. He’s out cold,” Brandon says to Roman.

  “Thank you. I’m going to get a first-aid kit. Stay with Aria.”

  “Sure.” Brandon joins me looking me up and down. “You sure have been mischievous lately. What happened to the sweet, quiet bookstore owner I used to be friends with?”